my raw life.

man, my days are fuckin’ tough sometimes. 

*shakes head*

i’m in a real shake-rattle-and-roll kinda mood today.

The night before Sloane was born, I had no idea it was the night before Sloane would be born. Like most parents don’t know. But I thought that night wouldn’t come for another few months. Or at least I hoped.

 I was laying on the couch with my head propped up on a pillow and my legs draped over John’s lap. My dad was sitting in our tattered, faded butterfly chair—the one we brought in from the garage when he came to stay with us—next to the couch. We were all watching something on TV, or maybe a movie. Some strange form of togetherness where we were trying to feel normal and at ease, but inside we all knew we were just waiting.

 I was in some weird state of discomfort. Not pain—something else. Something that didn’t feel right, but something that also didn’t feel serious. And yet, I was laying there, my head nearly horizontal, with tears silently rolling out the corners of my eyes and down into my ears.

 “I don’t know why I’m crying,” I whispered to John, not wanting my dad to see or hear or worry or ask questions. “I think I’m just scared for her.”

 I waited until an acceptable time, called it a night, and made the only trip up the stairs that I was allowed for the day. I went to the bathroom for the umpteenth and final time that day, and when I wiped, found streaks of slimy light brown matter covering the tissue. I stared at it. Squinted. Inspected. Wondered. Discarded.

running in the heat,

it’s not long before you know

what effort feels like.

is to be where you are. 

running feels good. makes me feel alive.

I feel bombarded by all of the empty space where Sloane should be. The floors barren of her toys. The cabinets hollow without her bottles. The room vacant of a crib. My arms cradling nothing.

 Part of me wants to fill up those spaces with all the things I never got to buy. Books. Blankets. Onesies. Toys. Bottles. Bowls. Soft, little spoons. Cute, snuggly animals. Signs of life.

 And part of me wishes John was here to take a Polaroid of me right now, lying on my stomach on the ground in her empty room. So that, over the years, the photo would yellow and fade, and we could look back on it and say, “This was your room before it became yours. One day, your mom really missed your sister, so she came in here to write about her.”

Leo hasn’t left my side tonight. He’s had to be laying or leaning up against me at all times. I guess tonight he just needs his mama. This is all I’ve got right now, and I’ll take it.

  he smells like comfort

like warm love—family—life lived

but not milk & skin

 - a haiku, on our hearts

it’s hard to breathe again after being out of practice for so long.

the hardness feels good. 

it’s some of the most alive you can ever feel.

I don’t even know how to explain it in ways that don’t just sound so trite. I don’t know how to convey the depth of the chasm that this experience has carved into me. Some days it’s as simple and understandable as just missing her; others it’s as consuming and devastating as not wanting to go on one more day without her. But on all of those days, it’s the pervasive, dull, aching pain of just feeling incomplete with no way to make myself whole again.

 I will always miss her. The depression will pass. It’s the incompleteness that I can’t handle.

It’s been more than a month of feeling good.

 My counselor told me that I’ve turned a corner. I had told her about this poignant moment I had on Friday, January 12th. It was around nine a.m., and I was sitting cross-legged on my couch, working away on my laptop while listening to half a dozen different species of bird melodically chattering in my front yard. Even in the softness of the morning, I already had an energy vibrating within me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was hungry—for everything. Hungry to get into my day’s work, to take on any new idea I thought of, to go outside and run around, to connect with anyone that came across my mind, to enjoy, to laugh, to play, to create, to appreciate, to give, to love.

 It was a hunger to be a part of life. It was a hunger to be me to the fullest.  And suddenly, I felt this overwhelming sensation bubble up inside of me; it flowed through my body like a thick, soft, pink fizz, filling every cell and exciting every nerve ending. And as it continued to course through my veins, I couldn’t help but exhale, with a heavy, forceful breath, the words, “I feel like me again.”

I was thinking today about how I’ll never know the adult daughter that Sloane would have grown into. I’ll never be able to point her out to someone across a room full of people and say, “That’s my daughter.” Watch her talk and smile and laugh about something I can’t hear, but just the same, know exactly who she is and how she carries herself and how she’s faring in the world. Because she’s my daughter, and I made her, and I know her from the inside out.

 When I close my eyes, I see her as she laid in my lap, already passed away, and I know everything about her. I am meeting her for the first time, and yet I feel as if I’ve known her forever. I am overcome with this impossibly true and perfectly comforting feeling that of course, this is her. Of course, this is Sloane—my baby, my daughter, my flesh, and my blood that’s been growing inside me for five months. Living with me. Sharing my world. Inhabiting my heart. Seeping into my bones. She couldn’t possibly be any other way; this is her, through and through.

 I know her spirit. I feel it with every fiber of my being.

 So, I suppose it’s not true that I’ll never know my daughter as an adult. My mom says each of her daughters has grown into the exact same person they were the day they were born—that she could see elements of who we are today in how we were those first few days.

5. I feel the fuzzy warmth of my blanket on my arms, the coolness of the open air on my foot where the blanket hangs open, the firm puffiness of the couch cushions on my back, the smooth metal of my laptop against the bottoms of my palms, and the light comfort of my t-shirt laying on my chest.

4. I see the bookcases standing tall against the wall, the pathos in the corner growing green and strong, my book splayed open on its stomach and waiting for me to pick it up, and the balcony light that needs to be turned off.

3. I hear the low hum of the refrigerator, the light plinkety-plink of me typing on the keys, and the random creaks and pops of the house settling.

2. I taste the faint leftover hint of my toothpaste and the dry foaminess  of a mouth that needs water.

1. I smell shampoo on my damp hair.